


Baker Street

by StarMaple



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bakerlock, Baking, Gen, Pre-Slash, Recipes, brief mention of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1583924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarMaple/pseuds/StarMaple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson, lately of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, has returned from war with a limp, a bullet in the shoulder, and very little in the way of job prospects. He's down to his last dime and about to be kicked out of his bedsit when he runs into his old classmate Mike Stamford who insists on taking him for pastry and a coffee at a bakery located at 221 Baker Street, where he meets a very unusual pastry chef.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stitchnik](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Stitchnik), [stitchy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/gifts).



> I'm pretty sure this whole thing is Stitchy's fault, and Lord knows I can't turn down the siren song of a crazy AU.

**Tea**

Ingredients:

1 Tea bag

Enough water to fill cup

Sugar and milk to taste

Directions:

Boil water in kettle. Add to mug or pot. Drop tea bag in water, let stand for 3-5 minutes, remove. Add milk and sugar to taste, if required. Serve with toast.

* * *

 

Doctor John Watson, lately of Her Majesty’s Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, had, in his own opinion, nothing at all going for him. He had tried to make a go of it, he really had, but any savings he had were gone, and his pension was spent by the second week of the month, forcing him to scrape by on pot noodles and black tea. There was no work to be had for an old soldier like him. He couldn’t even work retail or fast food because he couldn’t walk without his cane, and returning to surgery would be impossible due to the bullet in his shoulder affecting the fine motor control of his hand. The money was gone, and rent in the city, even in his depressing bedsit, was too high.

It was the 29th of January, and he had no idea what he’d do or where he would live come February. Fortunately, he didn’t have much to pack. Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford a single thing in the area. He needed a flatmate, and badly, but no one would live with a stranger with PTSD and nightmares. He was angry about the way his life had turned out, and depressed when he didn’t have the energy to be angry anymore. His service pistol, hidden in his desk drawer, was looking entirely too friendly. As tempting as the thought became in his darker moments, if he were to go out that way, it seemed a waste to do it with two days left paid up on his bedsit. He needed some fresh air, he thought to himself, shutting the desk drawer firmly with some last scrap of self-preservation. He gathered up his cane and his empty wallet and hobbled towards the door.

He walked aimlessly for a while, but found himself in Regent’s Park before too long. It was something of his old stomping grounds. With a good half dozen hospitals within walking distance of it (none of which had called him back regarding the CVs and applications sent to them since he’d returned from service) it had been a favorite place to wander on breaks when he needed a bit of fresh air during his residency. He was caught in his own bitterness-tinged reminiscences when he was startled by the sound of his own name on someone else’s lips.

“John Watson?”

He spun as best as he could to see who this person was—who could possibly recognize him in such a large city?—only to find a wide, friendly face smiling hesitantly at him.

“It’s Stamford. Mike Stamford. We worked at Bart’s together?” Mike was standing and offering out his hand. It took John a long time to respond, between remembering pleasantries and getting caught in memories of so long ago when the two of them had been so innocent, but finally he reached out and gave Mike a firm handshake.

“Mike, of course, how are you?” he asked, hoping his voice was more friendly and warm than he felt.

“Good, good.  Aside from this, of course,” he said patting at his middle good-naturedly—it had expanded a bit since med school. “And you? Heard you’d gone off to Afghanistan to get shot at.”

John’s smile became a bit more forced at that. “Yes. And I got shot.”

An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment before Mike barreled on ahead. “Coffee. We should get coffee. And a biscuit! I know a great place.”

John hesitantly agreed with a nod, and Mike instantly turned to lead the way, enthusiasm bubbling out of him, as he talked about the old days and just how good this coffee place was.

The shop Mike took him to for a coffee and a biscuit was a bit of a hike down Baker Street. They passed a number of Starbucks and tea shops on the way without comment, Mike asking questions and catching John up on the medical gossip as they walked at John's labored pace. John was just about to beg off and ask to just step into the next Starbucks based on the aching in his leg when Mike stopped in front of a storefront at number 221. It certainly didn't look like much. He wasn't quite sure why they'd hiked miles for a simple biscuit and a cuppa. Mike pulled the door open for John and ushered him inside. "You're in for a treat, mate," he enthused.

Inside it was anything but modern. Homey, John supposed, but a hodgepodge of decor from every era but the current one. There was certainly a woman's touch at work, but a very old one. He half expected some matronly type behind the counter, but instead there was a sweet mousy girl who looked up from the pastry case to greet them with a smile. "Hullo, Mike," she greeted. "The usual? And you've brought someone new. I suppose I should go get Sherlock."

Mike nodded. "Hello, Molly. The usual for me, thanks, yes." He glanced up at John with a little grin. John frowned back. Now that he was really looking, the bake shop seemed strange. None of the pastries in the case were labeled with what they were. Instead they were all labeled with the names of people. Molly was taking one of the biscuits labeled 'Mike' out of the case. There was also an éclair-looking thing, but rather pinker than normal, called ‘Molly’. A tall slice of a rich chocolate cake was called 'Mycroft' and there was a fancy sort of Danish called 'Lestrade'. But there was no list of ingredients, no description of what they were. Just a name and a price. Furthermore the coffee and tea service seemed very off-hand indeed. It certainly wasn't a Starbucks. There was no espresso machine, there was no loose-leaf tea. There was a battle worn coffee-pot and an electric tea kettle and a large box of PG Tips.

Molly served up Mike's biscuit on a chipped white plate and a coffee mug that didn't match and then headed to the back. "What is this place, Mike? Did we really walk all this way for a chocolate chip biscuit and a cup of tea I could make at home?"

“ _I_ came for a biscuit," Mike said enigmatically. "We'll see what you came for."

John was just about to snap that he'd had about enough of this strange pastry shop when a man burst from the back of the shop and immediately eyed John up and down in the most thorough assessment John had ever been given, in the military or out of it. John had assumed Molly had been the proprietress, but this gentleman swept out of the kitchen with a certain propriety that made it clear he was in charge. His black chef's jacket was covered in a fine dusting of flour. He was tall and whip thin (unusual in a pastry chef, John thought) and his head was crowned with dark curls.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" he snapped, looking a bit down his nose at John.

John drew back in surprise. The shock made him stand up straighter and clench his fist.

His hackles were up and he glanced about, looking for the trick.

The man in front of him sighed. "There's no trick," he said, sounding exasperated. "I saw it. It's there for anyone to see if they look, but most don't. The way you hold yourself, your tan, your limp. It all spells invalided home from war in a hot climate. That sort of thing is easy. What's difficult is deducing what you want to order."

"I believe the customer usually takes care of the ordering," John pointed out.

"Customers are idiots. They're easily persuaded by display or other customers or calories or cost and they leave unsatisfied. Which is why I do the ordering here."

He said this all frowning, looking John up and down and then examining his pastry case. "No, it's no good. Come back tomorrow."

"Excuse me?"

"I've nothing for you. Nothing even close. Leave and come back tomorrow and I'll have something for you then."

John chuckled a bit uncomfortably. "I have come a bit of a long way for just a dodgy cup of tea. Maybe just the Danish?"

"No, no. That's completely wrong. If you're going to have anything have Mycroft." The man sighed as if it were a very great inconvenience. "It's obvious you want cake, even if you think you shouldn't. You've been injured abroad in military action, there's no concern that anyone will think less of your masculinity if you eat a slice of cake."

John bristled, too incensed to judge the accuracy of the statement, but the man spun on his heel again and returned to the kitchen as Molly plated him up a slice of cake and a cuppa and set it down opposite Mike, who was obviously enjoying his tea and biscuit, making pleased noises at every bite.

John took a seat and picked up his fork and took a grudging bite. It was good. It was amazing, frankly. The chocolate was rich on his tongue, the frosting more like chocolate mousse than a traditional buttercream. There was a tart cherry filling thinly spread between the layers of cake. It was possibly the best chocolate cake he'd ever had. He looked up at Molly, eyebrows raised in surprise. "This is really fantastic!" he exclaimed.

Molly opened her mouth to reply when a booming voice came from the kitchen, "Come back tomorrow!"

John screwed up his face in confusion. "I don't understand. It's absolutely delicious. I'm perfectly satisfied. Why do I need to come back?"

Mike looked up from the rapturous gaze he was leveling at his biscuit. "Let's put it this way. You taste a very good chocolate cake. I'm tasting Christmas when I was eight years old."

John gave him a skeptical look but Mike's face stayed absolutely straight. "Come off it. It's just a biscuit."

Mike handed over a portion. "To you, yes. That's Sherlock's particular talent," he said as John chewed. It was a very good biscuit but he didn't taste anything aside from that. "He can deduce the one dessert you really want. It's practically therapy. I've seen people cry while eating here."

"He doesn't seem the sympathetic type."

"Oh, lord no. He's in it for the challenge. He doesn't even care about money. This place is always on the brink of going under." Stamford smiled. "And his customer service could use some polish. Thank God for Molly."

Molly smiled at them both, flushing. John smiled back a little, and polished off his cake while Mike savored every crumb of his biscuit. Mike refused to let him pay when Molly came over with the check. He put up a token protest, but he knew exactly how little money he had for such extravagances as baked goods. He thanked Mike for bringing him, said it was nice to catch up, and as they said goodbye to each other at the door, John was absolutely certain he would never see Mike or this strange bakery again. He waved goodbye to Mike and Molly and just as he was heading out the door the strange baker Sherlock thrust his head out of the kitchen again to shout, “Come back tomorrow!”

John nodded politely, but went back to his bedsit convinced otherwise.


	2. Toast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Leficia for the beta on this and forthcoming chapters.

**Toast**

Ingredients:

1 slice bread

Butter and/or jam to taste

Directions:

Place bread in toaster. Set to appropriate browning setting and start. Wait for toast to finish. Remove to plate and spread with topping of choice while still warm. Serve immediately.

* * *

 

John was absolutely _not_ going back to the strange little bakery at 221 Baker Street. It was ridiculous to walk so far for a biscuit and a dodgy cup of tea, and it wasn’t like he had any money to spend on tea anyway.

What a strange little place it had been, though! John laughed at the very idea of it. It would make a good setting for a story, he thought.  Maybe he should write about it. His therapist had been on him to keep a journal. He didn’t see the point, and he’d probably be assigned a new therapist soon enough once he moved back in with his sister temporarily in the suburbs. At least he hoped it was temporarily. He sighed.

Still, the laugh had lifted his spirits enough to bring on a bit of appetite, and he used his last piece of bread to make toast (a hassle he usually didn’t bother with) to have with his morning cup of tea. After breakfast, he decided another walk might not be amiss. It had killed quite a lot of time yesterday he would have otherwise spent staring at the bedsit walls and thinking about his gun. He got himself dressed and, gathering his cane, he set out again, this time without much of a plan about a destination, deciding he’d turn back once his leg got tired. He figured he’d be out an hour or so, which left the rest of the day to kill, but every little bit helped.

He walked aimlessly, looking in shop windows, people watching, and thinking about the days when he still moved about the city as if he were a part of it—a cog in the great machine of London. He felt a bit rusty nowadays—not just his leg, but his mind too. He felt unchallenged, useless. He caught his toe on a crack in the sidewalk and took a stumbling step forward. Pain jarred up his leg, and he decided it was time to head home, or at least to have a sit down for a while. He glanced up at the street sign to figure out where he was and discovered, to his surprise, he was back on Baker Street, just a few storefronts down from that ridiculous shop.

He fingered his wallet in his pocket, and after a moment decided a dodgy cup of tea couldn’t cost _that_ much, and headed off to 221. It would be a good place to sit and rest, he rationalized, and he couldn’t wait to see what that strange baker tried to offer him today, although he wouldn’t be able to afford whatever it was. It would at the very least be more adventure than he’d had since he’d returned from overseas, and he pushed open the door with an expectant smile.

Molly, who was sitting on a stool behind the cash register, looked up with an automatic smile that turned to an authentic one when she recognized him. “You came back!” she greeted. “He’ll be very pleased. He’s been baking all day. He was absolutely certain you’d show up any minute.”

He returned her smile on reflex and sank gratefully into the seat he’d occupied the day before, stretching out his leg with a sigh and leaning his cane against the edge of the table. “Just tea please, thanks,” he told her. “I wasn’t planning on stopping in myself, so there’s no way he could have known, no matter how clever he is. I just happened to be in the neighborhood and my leg started aching and—“

He was cut off when the man himself burst from the back again, covered in a bit more flour than yesterday, giving the impression that somehow he’d been baking _harder_ than before, if such a thing was possible. He was carrying a large baking tray, which he set down on the top of the bakery case with a clatter. It was covered in all manner of pastry, none of which John had seen yesterday. “Nonsense,” he stated. “You’ve no business in the area ordinarily, and your limp is psychosomatic. You were looking for an excuse to stop in and your mind conveniently provided with you one.”

John bristled at that, enough so that Molly set down the mug of tea in front of him with extra care and backed away to a safe distance again. “Here now, you can’t just say things like that. I was shot in the war!”

Sherlock, who had been studying the tray of pastries in front of him with intense concentration, glanced up at him with a raised eyebrow. “But not in the leg,” he said.

“What?”

“You weren’t shot in the leg.”

John blinked, and then shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Well, no.”

“So, a psychosomatic limp. I’ve no doubt you feel the pain as real, but there is no physical cause for it. The trick becomes to retrain your mind to respond to stimulus in a way other than sending pain signals. I take it your therapist hasn’t been entirely successful.” He held up a slice of diplomat cake, and squinted at it, as if comparing it to John, and then lifted some sort of berry scone. He put both back on the tray with a frustrated huff.

“How did you know I had a—“ he cut himself off. This strange baker knew quite a lot of things and it seemed rather fruitless to ask, especially in light of his current bizarre behavior. “What is it you are doing?”

“Trying to decipher your pastry,” Sherlock said. He sounded very, very annoyed. “You’re much more difficult than most.” He picked up a slice of cake and put it back down again.

“Well you needn’t bother yourself. I just came in for a cup of tea.”

Sherlock scoffed. “No one comes in here for a cup of tea. We have terrible tea!”

“Well, a rest, really. I came in to rest my leg and the tea gave me an excuse to have a seat.”

“Well, have a pastry and you’ll have more of an excuse.”

John held up his hand. “No thank you. I really couldn’t. I’m still quite content with my breakfast.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “There are bread crumbs on your jumper. No ketchup, no eggs, no bacon grease, not even any salt. You had toast for breakfast. No one is ever satisfied with only toast.” He shifted his stance, then looked at John through narrowed eyes. “This isn’t a money thing, is it? You’re not concerned about the cost? You can _have_ the pastry for all I care, as long as it’s the right one.”

Molly let out a little sound, and glancing in her direction John could see the face of a woman who did the books and knew how much trouble the bakery was in. He looked back to Sherlock. “I couldn’t possibly,” he refused and sipped at his tea hoping to end the conversation.

Sherlock opened his mouth to argue the point further when a man bursting through the door interrupted them. “Sherlock! I need all the chocolate you have,” the stranger said. He was fashionably dressed in a smart suit, with prematurely graying hair, and probably seemed more than a little imposing when he wasn’t in a blind panic.

Sherlock had seemed interested by the stranger’s entrance, but then sighed at his request. “Lestrade, I import my chocolate directly from Belgium from a small, single source choc—“

“I’ll pay you double retail!”

Sherlock was unmoved. “And who is your pastry chef this evening?”

Lestrade shifted a bit, suddenly hesitant. “Anderson.”

Sherlock looked disgusted. “Anderson asked you to ask me for product?”

Lestrade sighed. “Anderson under-ordered. I told him I was going to the market to get more.”

“Then I invite you to pop down to the Tesco and buy some _Hershey’s_.” Ice fairly dripped from every word, and Sherlock began to turn his back.

“But we’re booked solid tonight, and we’ve got a food critic on their way in, and we’ve already gone through all the chocolate we had, and we’re not through brunch!”

“Obvious. Many women choose chocolate to regulate hormonal swings, and a significant portion of women have their cycles tied to the lunar phases. It’s a new moon tonight. I always order 25% more chocolate for the new moon.” Sherlock rattled the words off like bullets from a machine gun, but looked placid when he stopped to draw a breath, like it was something that happened every day. Lestrade for his part, looked unfazed.

 “Sherlock!” Lestrade pleaded.

“I have a proposal,” Sherlock said smoothly. “I make the desserts you need here, with my chocolate. Molly will quote you wholesale prices, providing you return with a panel van and proper wheeled baking racks in 2 hours. Will that be sufficient?”

“Yes,” Lestrade said, sounding relieved. “That will be fine. But have you got more help? You and Molly can’t possibly turn out enough servings by yourself in two hours. You know the size of my restaurant! I can send over Ander—“

“Anderson won’t work with me! Leave him to his… _cheese trays_.” John didn’t think he’d ever heard the words said so disdainfully in his life. “I have a sous chef, of course. John, here, was just interviewing for the position when you came in. He has an international reputation I assure you. He’s worked extensively on three continents.”

John sputtered as Lestrade looked at him speculatively, but military habits were hard to break and under such scrutiny John went straight-backed and calmly confident, even if he’d never seen the inside of a professional kitchen. Lestrade seemed to like what he saw. “Fine. I’ll be back in two hours,” he said, and left in a rush.

John looked up at Sherlock, who seemed to be looking at him rather expectantly as Molly shot to her feet. She flipped the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ and then rushed back into the kitchen, through the swinging door tying her hair back tightly as she went.

“I’m not a sous chef,” John said flatly.

“No, you’re a surgeon and a soldier recently returned from Afghanistan. That means, that at the very least, you know how to properly ‘scrub in’.” Sherlock said, twisting his body just enough to subtly invite John back into the kitchen.

“It’s amazing how you do that,” John said, shaking his head. Sherlock smiled at the analysis, seemingly pleasantly surprised by the response. “But I’m no baker. I practically burned my toast this morning.”

“I’m not asking you to be the baker. I am the baker. I need a sous chef. An assistant. In your parlance, a nurse. I am absolutely certain you are capable, but I can see how very busy you are, seeing as you were wandering aimlessly miles away from your bedsit for the second day in a row…” he said airily, walking backwards into the kitchen.

That got John’s dander up. He gripped his cane and pushed himself to his feet. “Fine! Fine, but I don’t want the blame when your desserts come out all wrong,” he said, shaking his finger at Sherlock as he marched forward. “And someday you are going to tell me how you manage all that mindreading stuff.”

Sherlock clapped his hands together, looking beyond pleased, and then held the swinging door open for John. “Of course! No time, now, however. The game is on!” he crowed, and ushered John into a sparkling professional kitchen.


	3. Chocolate Buttercream Icing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is thrust into a professional kitchen for the first time in his life. He needs to make 200 tiny, perfect cakes in two hours with a limp and a hand tremor. What could be simpler?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Felicia for the Beta and Britpicking. Thanks to Stitchy for the endless encouragement and art. Thanks to everyone who has left kudos and comments in the past two days. I had no idea anyone else would be interested in Bakerlock aside from me!

**Chocolate Buttercream Icing**

Ingredients:

4 oz butter, softened

3 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted

13.5 oz icing sugar

1/3 fl oz vanilla

1.5 to 2 oz milk

Directions:

In large bowl, mix butter and chocolate until smooth. Stir in powdered sugar. Beat in vanilla and milk until smooth and spreadable. If icing is too thick, beat in more milk, a few drops at a time. If icing becomes too thin beat in a small amount of powdered sugar. Ices 24 cupcakes or 2-layer cake.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock marched into the kitchen not unlike generals John had known. “Molly, we’re doing a modification on Mycroft. We’ll cut shaped cakes from large, thin sheet cakes to speed cooking time. Get started melting the chocolate and then move on to the filling please. I’ll handle the cake. John will be taking the icing, so pass the chocolate to him when you’ve melted it.”

“I’ll be doing _what_?” John sputtered. He had figured he’d be washing dishes or cleaning up. Certainly not actually making something that someone would _eat_. That someone would pay quite a lot of money to eat, judging by the apparent expense of Lestrade’s suit.

“Do keep up, John,” Sherlock said, and proceeded to half strangle him, putting an apron over his head and then pushed him over towards the sink. “Wash up and then come meet me at the mixers.”

“I have a cane and a hand tremor!”

“And I have an eidetic memory for recipes, one of the top palates in Europe and little to no patience for social pleasantries or stupidity. I am fairly confident we both have the skills to switch a mixer on, which is all I am requiring of you. Hurry.”

“Your funeral,” John muttered, turning to the sink to scrub up, and then following Sherlock over to where the mixers stood. They were smaller than he expected. Sherlock, in the time it had taken John to wash his hands, had already started on his mixer, adding eggs one by one to a rich brown batter.

“We make small batches which allows us better control over quality,” he called over the sound of the mixer. “Keep making icing until I tell you to stop. Clean bowls are there,” he pointed to a neat stack of them near what must be an industrial dishwasher. “Put butter in the bowl, turn the mixer on medium. Beat it until it’s fluffy. Molly will bring you chocolate when you call for it, pour in the chocolate and keep beating. Add the sugar. When that’s mixed, vanilla and milk. When you’re done set the bowl on the counter and start again. Nothing could be simpler.”

“But how much--?” asked John, looking around him at stacks of butter and bins of sugar.

“Molly!” Sherlock called, almost dismissively, by way of answer, taking his bowl of batter and carefully pouring it onto a large rimmed baking sheet, completely focused on his work.

Molly hurried over with a kind smile. “It really is very simple,” she said. “Here, let me show you.” She walked him through the first batch, showing him how to carefully measure the amounts and when to add them, and what the finished product should look like. When they’d finished, she patted him on the back and said, “There. See? Nothing to it,” and John had to admit it hadn’t seemed that hard at all.

On the other side of the kitchen, Sherlock loudly cleared his throat and Molly scurried back to the stove to melt chocolate and cook berries and John was on his own.

It was all very genteel until the first cake came out of the oven. “Molly, I need the ring cutter and the filling. John! You should be done by now! Molly, show him how to fill a pastry bag!”

John was pulled away from the mixer to, rather sloppily, in his own opinion, fill pastry bags with the icing he’d just made, and then darted back to the mixer to make another batch of icing only to start again. At the large worktable behind him, Molly and Sherlock were cutting circle-shaped cakes out of the larger sheet cake, filling and frosting them almost faster than seemed humanly possible. When Sherlock told him (somehow noting it out of the corner of his eye) that he’d made enough frosting, he took it upon himself to speed the process along by moving to slap a new pastry bag into Sherlock’s hand just as he was emptying the old one (like a nurse might have handed John a scalpel, he thought with some pleasure), and cleared away the scrap cake in time for Molly to put a new sheet cake down in it’s place.

Though Sherlock was sparing with his praise, he did find the time to note, “Good, John,” as he saw John was finding his feet in the kitchen, and John found he _felt_ good, being back in a situation where he had to rely on his judgment and instincts. It wasn’t an operating room, certainly, but there were certain similar aspects, and by the time the third sheet cake came out on the table, he was working ahead, putting parchment paper on the big empty baking sheets they were plating the finished cakes on, in preparation to receive another batch, and moving the trays with finished cakes out of the way and on to a baking rack they could exchange for one of Lestrade’s empty ones.

“Time, Molly!” Sherlock called, unwilling to look up from the cakes neatly stacked in front of him as he steadily and artistically applied chocolate icing to each one.

“Fifteen minutes!” Molly called, taking the time to glance at the clock. From the tone of her voice they were cutting it close. She sounded nervous. Sherlock was grinning madly, practically laughing.

“John, Lestrade will be here any second. Go to the back door, let him in, and start loading the completed cakes, while we finish up in here,” Sherlock instructed, still not looking up.

“Roger that,” John said, suppressing a salute, and walking quickly but calmly (there was no running in an operating room) to the door in the back. As he got there, he saw a white van, with lettering across the back reading ‘The Yard’ and ‘London’s Newest Michelin Star’, just backing up to what passed for a loading bay. He shook his head again at Sherlock’s preternatural abilities. Lestrade popped out of the cab looking frazzled at first, but seemed to look a bit hopeful at John standing at the loading door looking calm and waiting for him. “We’re ready to go,” John said, because he felt like Lestrade might need the reassurance. “Sherlock is just finishing up the last of the cakes now.”

“Thank God,” Lestrade said, breathing out a sigh of relief. “The first seating is just getting their appetizers now.” Together he and John started carefully transferring the trays of small cakes from the kitchen to the back of the van as Sherlock and Molly put the finishing touches on the last few dozen cakes.

“I presume Anderson can handle moving the cakes from parchment to plate without mauling them,” Sherlock said loudly to the cake he was putting chocolate icing flourishes on. “A sparing decoration of raspberry or cherry coulis on the plate would not be offensive, if he must put his own stamp on it. Just don’t let him ‘artfully drizzle’ it all over the cake. It’s balanced as it is, thank you.”

“Yes, Sherlock,” Lestrade said, pausing momentarily before lifting another sheet. “I’ll supervise him personally.” There was a great sigh that was probably only slightly due to the weight of the baking sheet he was lifting.

Once Sherlock finished the last of the cakes, it was only a matter of minutes before Lestrade’s van was completely loaded (and the secureness of the desserts double and triple checked) and Lestrade was hastily climbing back into the cab yelling over his shoulder that Molly should just send him an invoice as well as multiple ‘thank you’s to each of them.

The three of them walked back into the kitchen. It was a bit of a disaster, baking sheets with scrap cake piled haphazardly on the counter. Bowls with remnants of icing were stacked precariously nearby. John felt in a bit of a daze. It was hard to believe that what had just happened had actually happened. He, John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers had just helped make two hundred tiny chocolate cakes. They were mostly silent, and Molly turned immediately towards straightening up. Sherlock walked towards where the discarded scrap cake was piled up, picked up a piece and offered it out towards John. “Cake?” he asked, and grinned.

John looked at him for a moment and then chuckled. Sherlock chuckled back, and it wasn’t long until the both of them were crying with laughter at the entire strange situation.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever done!” John panted, wiping at his eyes.

From the counter where the mixers were, Molly’s higher laugh joined theirs, but then suddenly cut off with a clatter. John looked up to see what had fallen.

“Oh, I’m sorry, John.” She bent and picked up his cane.

His cane.

John looked up at Sherlock in shock. His cane had been leaning next to the mixer where he had left it when things started getting busy. He’d completely forgotten to use it in the last hour and forty-five minutes.

“When did you notice?” he asked Sherlock.

Sherlock just quirked his lips like John had just asked a particularly stupid question. He probably had. “Psychosomatic,” he pronounced instead with a knowing smile, untying the strings of his apron. “Molly, please see that Doctor Watson is paid for his assistance this afternoon. I assume the check from Lestrade will be enough to pay all three of us properly for once.”

John was still staring at the cane. His hand was steady too, for the first time in ages. His shoulder still ached, of course, that gaping wound had been real enough, and the damage it did to his musculature was enough to keep him from being a surgeon for the rest of his life, but the tremors had stopped. “What did you do?” he asked Sherlock.

“Your training makes you particularly good in stressful situations. Actually, I think you thrive in them. You kept your head even when entirely out of your depth. You’d be good in a kitchen,” Sherlock said speculatively. “How would you feel about working in a kitchen? This kitchen.”

John looked up in disbelief. “Are you actually offering me a job? A real job? I have no training! I’ve never managed much besides beans on toast in my life!” Sherlock, he was coming to discover, was possibly unhinged.  “You somehow know my entire life story, but you don’t know that?”

Sherlock waved his hand. “Lack of knowledge does not mean incapable. You’ve grace under pressure. You’re clever. You follow orders well. That’s all I need in an assistant.” He glanced at Molly. “Neither of you have the palate, of course, but you don’t need one yourself if I’m here.”

John tilted his head, incredulous. “We’ve only just met, you’ve pulled me into your kitchen to frantically make chocolate cakes all afternoon, and now you’re offering me a job?”

“And a flat,” Sherlock added. “I live upstairs in 221b. There’s a second bedroom, and between the rent and the lease for the bakery it’s all a bit much. I’ve a very understanding landlady, but as Molly knows, we usually barely scrape by. With an extra hand we could expand—subcontract to local restaurants as we did tonight…”

“This is ridiculous.” It was too good to be true, that was for sure. A flat and a job seemingly out of thin air?

“You are considering it, though. Otherwise you’ll have to leave London in a matter of days. And a man like you could never leave London for anything less than the battlefield.”

John shook his head, unable to believe this was actually happening, and furthermore, that he was actually considering it. He sighed. “Let’s see the flat then,” he said at last with a shrug.

Molly looked quietly pleased, as if she was grateful to have a coworker at last who wasn’t a complete nutter. Sherlock just looked smug, as if he’d known John would say yes all along. “We’ll return in a moment, Molly,” he said, and lead John to the back stairs and up to 221b.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recipe is modified from Betty Crocker Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. Original here: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/chocolate-buttercream-frosting/c530f4f8-2182-4b89-8938-34a25ff8134a
> 
> (Replace milk with orange juice for chocolate orange frosting. It's delicious!)


	4. Merengue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John moves in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone leaving such lovely comments, kudos, and bookmarks. I'm so happy you like it. :)

**Merengue**

Ingredients:

4 egg whites

.03 oz cream of tartar

.25 oz vanilla

5.75 oz sugar

Directions:

In medium bowl, beat egg whites with whisk (or electric mixer), cream of tartar and vanilla until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, beating continuously until stiff peaks form and mixture is glossy. Use to top pie, cupcakes, or to make pavlova. Bake in oven at 230 degrees C or at gas mark 8 until top is golden brown.

* * *

 

“This could be very nice. This could be very nice indeed,” John said, almost in spite of himself. Sherlock was not the most conscientious housekeeper. There were piles of reference books and newspaper clippings in stacks all over the living room of the flat. There was what appeared to be a cow’s skull with a chef’s toque on it on one wall. A stack of mail was pinned to the mantelpiece with an ice pick. Still, the space had an unmistakable hominess to it, and surely once John moved in the clutter would dissipate a bit. A bachelor living alone could get away with a little clutter, but once a space was shared they would have to be a bit more conscientious.

The kitchen was somehow both cluttered and pristine. It was chock-a-block with kitchen gadgets and ingredients, many of which John was sure he’d never seen before, but still, it was somehow as spotless as the kitchen downstairs. His bedroom would be upstairs, and it was nicely but sparsely furnished with a bed and a wardrobe, with some wallpaper with a swirling design in green.

It all suited him fine. More than fine, to be honest, and Sherlock insisted he could afford it all on what Sherlock would pay him.

“So, if that’s settled,” Sherlock was saying, seated across from him next to the fire on a rather modern looking armchair, “you should probably go and collect your things from whatever horrible bedsit you are currently barely maintaining. I gather it won’t be much?”

“No. Not much at all,” John agreed. “I can probably get it all into my army duffel and be back in an hour or so.”

Sherlock nodded. “That sounds like an excellent use of your evening. Once you’ve returned, come back downstairs to the bakery and we’ll go over your duties.”

Transit held John up a little more than he expected, but still, he was back with all his worldly possessions in just under two hours. He glanced into the bakery window as he passed, on his way to the front door of the flat, ready to toss off a little wave to Molly if she was in the front, only to see Lestrade the restaurateur back and talking to both Molly and Sherlock. ‘Oh God,’ he thought to himself, ‘what if he is demanding a refund because of my rubbish icing?’ It was no good unpacking if his lack of cooking skills got him tossed out on the street on his very first day, so he marched in, bag and all, to hear the bad news.

“Jesus, Sherlock,” Lestrade was saying, running his hand through his hair. “Anderson’s more than a little pissed off, of course.”

John’s heart sank.

“But then no one likes to get upstaged in their own kitchen. I don’t know how you manage it, but you always know what to make. The food critic said the cake tasted like home, and everything else on the menu barely rated an average.”

John’s eyebrows lifted into his hairline and he dropped his bag in surprise on the bakery’s linoleum floor. Greg turned to look at him, including him into the conversation with a warm smile while Sherlock huffed a sigh.

“You needn’t look so surprised,” Sherlock said, sounding irritated. “It was my recipe after all, and I did all the assembly.”

Greg ignored Sherlock’s ill manners and extended his hand to John. John shook it numbly. “It was lucky you were in today, John. Now that it’s clear you all can handle volume, I think I’ll be sourcing a bit more pastry through here. Sherlock, pleasure doing business. Clear mid-February, I have a feeling I’ll be needing you for Valentine’s.” He waved and then brushed past John on his way out the door.

Once the door was safely shut Molly gave an excited clap. “This could be exactly what we need, Sherlock. I know you don’t like cooking for people you can’t get a look at, but a few more jobs like this and we might actually be in the black this year!”

Sherlock ignored her in favor of John. “I believe I told you to go upstairs and unpack and then come down here to work.” He looked pointedly at John’s duffle. “It concerns me a bit that you are so clearly confused by basic instructions, but you are new so…”

John bristled. “No, I know what you said. I just saw Lestrade and thought I might be fired,” he tried to explain.

Sherlock gave him a withering look. “Why on earth would you be fired?” he said, as if it were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “I have said you are sufficient to the task and my opinion is all you need concern yourself with.” He sighed and then waved John back to the kitchen. “Leave it for now. Kick your things into the corner, wash up and come back to work. I want to see how long it takes you to whip egg whites into a merengue by hand.” He spun on his heel as if that were all there was to say on the matter and marched back into the kitchen through the swinging door. “You’ll want to keep the whisk in your right hand,” he called over his shoulder. “It’s likely to be taxing to the gunshot wound in your left shoulder.”

John stood still and stunned in the wake of Hurricane Sherlock and glanced at Molly. Molly simply smiled and shrugged at him. “You’d best not keep him waiting. I’ll watch your things,” she said, coming out from behind the counter to pick up the strap of John’s bag and half carry-half drag it to safety.

“This is absolutely mad,” John murmured. Molly just smiled and nodded at him.

“John! You are wasting my time!” was bellowed from the kitchen, and John shook his head in disbelief at the turn his life had taken and scurried back into the kitchen to learn how to properly whisk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recipe adapted from Betty Crocker Lemon Meringue Cupcakes: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/lemon-meringue-cupcakes/2c767928-3a59-4523-853a-4b7d94f0399f
> 
> These are crazy delicious, by the way.


	5. Chocolate Chip Biscuits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently Sherlock loudly bakes biscuits in the middle of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Felicia for the beta. Also, I just realized I've been making some mistakes on the US to UK recipe conversions (you DO use Table and Teaspoons, thank GOD) so I'll go back and fix the recipes in light of that. I'll add grams too, since all the recipes on the BBC food site uses both.

**Chocolate Chip Biscuits**

Ingredients:

3.5 oz granulated sugar

3.5 oz brown sugar

4 oz butter, softened

1.25 oz cup shortening

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

6.5 oz flour

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

6 oz. chocolate chips

Directions:

Pre heat oven to gas mark 5/190 degrees C. Mix sugars, butter, shortening, egg and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls about two inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until light brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool slightly before removing from cookie sheet. 

* * *

 

“Sherlock!” John shouted over the sound of the mixer and the oven timer going off at the same time. “It’s three in the bloody morning!”

The flat, had, of course, been more than serviceable, especially compared to the bedsit, and most especially compared to his sister’s house. Sherlock was not exactly neat—there were boxes of recipes and books and articles on technique or ingredients or flavor profiles (apparently some of which Sherlock had written himself) stacked haphazardly around the flat that had not gone away once John moved in. There was little room in the fridge for actual food because Sherlock had stuffed it with butter and eggs and exotic or obscure ingredients (sometimes interesting and sometimes noxious) because Sherlock liked to experiment in his home kitchen. Apparently at all hours of the day and night.

Sherlock turned to look at him mildly and then turned to take a sheet of biscuits out of the oven. “I was bored,” Sherlock said. “You weren’t around, and I had an epiphany about the fat to sugar content in my chocolate chip biscuit recipe.” The baking sheet was pulled from the oven and set on top to cool.

“I wasn’t around because I was asleep, Sherlock! I need to sleep if I’m going to get up at 5 in the bloody morning to open the bakery!” John rubbed his hand across his face.

“You all sleep too much, anyway. Here, try this.” He pulled a biscuit from the stack cooling on the counter and fairly jammed it into John’s mouth.

John sputtered, yanking the biscuit out of his mouth. “Sherlock, it’s too early for…” he trailed off, the few crumbs in his mouth registering on his tongue. “Wow. Yes,” he said, eyes getting large, before pulling himself back together. “I mean, yes, it’s very good. Better than the one Mike shared with me the other day. But do you have to make them here? Why can’t you go downstairs and make them?”

“Such small batches are better suited to a home kitchen,” he said primly. “Also Molly threatens to quit if she comes in in the morning and the kitchen isn’t as clean as she left it.”

“Smart girl,” John said, trying not to draw attention to the fact that he was polishing off the biscuit, annoyance quickly dimming. “Still, when you said you sometimes stayed up all night, experimenting, I expected something a bit quieter than blenders and mixers and kitchen timers. My mum used to make biscuits with a big ceramic bowl and a wooden spoon.”

Sherlock turned back to the oven. “Inadequate distribution of ingredients,” he said dismissively. “Still, if you’re up…”

“No,” John said, raising a hand to forestall any discussion. “I am not _up_. I am going back to bed and you are going to bake quietly for the rest of the evening, thank you.” He drew his dressing gown a bit tighter around himself and shuffled back towards the stairs to his upstairs bedroom. “And you’d better have tea ready for me in the morning, because I’m going to need it.”

“You didn’t need tea if you were called in early to work in Afghanistan.” Sherlock was still looking at his biscuits. He held one up to the light and then carefully broke it precisely in half looking carefully at the fracture line.

“If I was called in early to work, the blood, screaming and adrenaline usually took the place of the caffeine. If we have all three of those things in the kitchen downstairs something will have gone horribly wrong. I think tea will just be simpler and less messy in that case.”

Sherlock turned to look at him, a thoughtful twist to his mouth and John paused sure he was going to say something either infuriating, funny or poignant, but instead, after a long moment, he simply said, “I will see you in two hours then, John,” and turned back to his baking.

“Goodnight,” John said in response, and shuffled back upstairs, collapsing into bed only to be woken up less than two hours later by the screeching of his own alarm. He slapped it off trying to decide if it, or the oven timer, was more obnoxious, and pushed himself out of bed with a mighty yawn. It was quiet downstairs, so quiet that John thought Sherlock might have gone back to sleep himself, but when he shuffled downstairs, dressed and mostly ready for the day, Sherlock was perched in his chair in a thoughtful pose, eyes closed and fingers pressed together, likely meditating on a new recipe. He couldn’t have been at it too long, however, because when he made it to the kitchen there was a steaming mug on the table, tea steeped to just the right color. “Ta for this,” he called, unsure whether Sherlock would process it or not, and put a slice of bread in the toaster.

He’d been living on a sparse budget for so long, that the first thing he’d done when he was feeling more secure was to go out and treat himself to a few groceries. He’d felt ridiculous buying jam that cost an extra quid more than the store brand stuff, but it was his favorite, and now when he pulled it out of the fridge, he couldn’t help but smile. The extra money was worth it when it reminded him that, through a very strange twist of fate, he would be able to stay in London. He had a very unexpected job, but he had a job and he had a flat and there was food on the table (and then some, looking at the pile of biscuits stacked up) and for the time being at least he had nothing to worry about besides getting up at 5 am and the questionable life decisions of his flatmate.

He picked up his tea with one hand and his plate with toast (with butter and jam) in the other—and wasn’t that novel, carrying two things at once, rather than one thing and a cane-- and stepped into the living room to be sociable, if Sherlock was feeling sociable. He sat down in the overstuffed armchair, rested his plate on his thigh and took a large bite of his toast. When he looked up Sherlock was looking at him intently. He swallowed and wiped at the corners of his mouth in case he’d gotten jam smeared on his face.

“We’re about to head down to a bakery, where you will be able to take in sugar and carbohydrates just by inhaling and you’ve chosen toast and jam for breakfast?” Sherlock asked archly.

John chuckled. He supposed it was relatively silly. He should probably have eggs and sausages, but who could be bothered to do a proper fry up at five in the morning when he was liable to be cooking all day? Plus, it was a little early for heavy proteins, he thought. “I suppose I’ll learn in time. For now it’s just what I felt like.” He took another bite, followed by a sip of tea. It absolutely hit the spot and the jam went swimmingly with the tea. “What about you? Derive your sustenance from the air, do you?”

Sherlock snorted. “I have one of the top ten palates in Europe. Eating terrible food is worse than eating no food at all, and I find cooking proteins myself tedious.”

“So how do you not just collapse?” John said, concerned. Sherlock was whip thin already, unusual, he thought, for a chef. Especially a pastry chef. Surely he couldn’t afford to run as he did on a constant calorie deficit.

“Most people eat more than they need, and I do have to taste all my output at work as quality control. For proteins there are a number of unassuming, but very good, restaurants that offer takeaway. Nobody gives Michelin stars to places that have lunch specials under ten pounds, but that doesn’t mean they’re not capable of quality food. The Chinese establishment down the street, for instance, rivals anything Ramsay can turn out,” Sherlock said a bit disdainfully, “but apparently décor and place settings are more important than food to most people.”

Which explained a lot about the look of Sherlock’s own bakery, John thought to himself. “So you don’t have anyone to feed you up?”

“Feed me up?”

“Take care of you. You know, like a girlfriend. Molly?”

“Ah. Not really my area.”

“Oh. Boyfriend, then?” The air seemed to grow awkward. “Which is fine, of course,” he hastened to add.

“I know it’s fine. But no.”

“So we’re both single then. Good.”

Sherlock paused, narrowed his eyes, and looked confused. “I am flattered,” he said, cautiously, “but I think you should know I consider myself married to my work and I—“ Sherlock started.

“No,” John said firmly. It was too early for these sorts of things, that was for certain. “No, I wasn’t asking. No.” He took a long bracing gulp of tea. “I just wanted to know if anyone else might be coming over to the flat… socially.”

“Not in that meaning, no,” Sherlock allowed. “But there may be a client from time to time who comes by in off hours for emergency last minute cakes. It’s happened before, and the money that comes in for a rush order seems to please Molly. She keeps track of all the accounting. It’s all a bunch of trivial numbers. I’ve deleted it to make room for recipes.”

“Deleted it?” John asked, confused.

“From my head. There’s a limited amount of storage up here,” he tapped his temple with his index finger, “and at times I need to make room. Usually for recipes and technique. Everything else is pointless and gets deleted. Like accounting. I’m almost sure I suffered through some sort of ‘accounting for small business owners’ course at culinary school, but I can’t remember a thing about it. That’s one of the reason’s she’s so very valuable. She handles all the pointless things so I can just cook. She’s been begging me to bring on someone else for years. She’s been learning about ‘marketing’ and keeps saying things like ‘you can’t just wait for your customers to come to you’ and ‘this is no way to run a bakery’. Now that you’re here she can go out and get more business like she always said she could.”

John chuckled. “How can you just not care like that about your own business?”

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow at him. “All that matters is the baking, John. I would do it if I had a storefront or no. The rest is just so much trivia and nonsense.”

John shook his head, amused, and finished his last bite of toast. Sherlock frowned at him, looking a touch annoyed that John did not leap to agree, and pushed to his feet. “Come on, John. Molly will be cross if we’re not to work on time.”

John quickly downed the last of his tea and hurried after him down the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recipe is my dad's modification of an old Betty Crocker recipe. The change in the butter to shortening ratio makes alllll the difference.


	6. Angel Food Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's customer service gets a test.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Felicia for the beta.

**Angel Food Cake**

Ingredients:

12 large egg whites (12.5 oz) – room temperature

7 oz icing sugar

4.5 oz all-purpose flour OR 3 oz cake flour

1 ½ tsp cream of tartar

6.75 oz granulated sugar

1 ½ tsp vanilla

½ tsp almond extract

¼ tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to gas mark 5/190 C. Move oven rack to lowest position. In a medium bowl, mix the icing sugar and flour. Set aside. In a large bowl add cream of tartar to egg whites. Beat with electric mixer on medium until mixture looks foamy. On high speed, beat in the granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time; add the vanilla, almond extract and salt with the last addition of sugar. Continue beating until meringue is stiff and glossy. Do not underbeat. Fold powdered sugar/flour mixture gradually into meringue. When batter is fully mixed, spoon batter into ungreased angel food cake pan. Using metal spatula or knife, gently cut through the batter, spreading batter gently against side of pan to break large air pockets. Bake 30-35 minutes until cracks in cake feel dry and top springs back when touched lightly. Turn pan upside down to rest on heatproof funnel or bottle. Let cake stand for 2 hours or until completely cool. Loosen cake by running knife or spatula between cake and side of pan and flip pan onto serving plate.

* * *

 Molly had started dressing more smartly since John had been hired. She came in a few minutes after John had started setting up the bakery for the day—putting the bags of yesterday’s baking into the ‘day old’ basket on the counter, setting out ingredients which needed to come to room temperature, and checking to see if any deliveries were due in this morning—and announced she would be spending most of the afternoon around town trying to drum up more business for the bakery.

“I know you much prefer to see someone in person and then make something for them—and you can still do that sometimes, Sherlock—but it’s just not profitable. And now more people are depending on this place to make a profit, so we’re going to have to do things that might be construed as… selling out. A bit. Sorry.” She finished a bit timidly and John wondered how Sherlock might have snapped at her before he had been around.

Sherlock looked like he wanted to say something pointed to that, but instead he just sighed deeply and went back to meditating about éclairs or whatever it was he did to prep for the morning instead of actually doing things.

“Someone’s coming in today to order something. Cake for a boss’s retirement,” Molly continued, looking at her notes on a clipboard she kept by the front register. “Said he knew you from school. Sebastian Wilkes? Not culinary school, surely?”

John didn’t miss how Sherlock flinched, but said nothing about it. Sherlock took a moment to gather himself and then turned back to her. “No. From my year at Oxford. He’s likely either a lawyer or an investment banker by now. I’m sure John can manage to take the order.”

“You went to Oxford?” John asked, incredulous. Sure, Sherlock seemed posh and smart, and fully capable, but after seeing him in the kitchen it seemed inconceivable that he’d ever trained to be anything but a pastry chef.

Sherlock sighed. “Yes, my mother had her heart set on it and… well, it took me a year to convince her otherwise.”

Christ. Sherlock had a mother. What must she be like? It seemed so bizarre to think that someone like Sherlock had come from somewhere. That he had a family—a mother and a father, maybe even siblings! John shook his head, chuckling, at the very idea.

Sherlock was giving him a strange look. On anyone else it might have seemed like insecurity, but this was Sherlock after all, and John had never seen a larger ego. Still…

“Well, I’m glad you were able to convince her. It’s very rewarding to find your calling in life,” John said, with a twinge of memory. Baking with Sherlock was satisfying, but it wasn’t his calling. Surgery was his calling, and now it was gone. The praise seemed to have settled Sherlock, however, as the expression was off his face and he was back to focusing on the desserts of the day.

“We’ll start with the chocolate cake, I think. If you could start on the frosting, John?” he asked, and John nodded and got to work making one of the few things he knew how to make so far. He wasn’t sure he could ever remember so many recipes as Sherlock, however, or even Molly. He might have to start writing them down. Maybe he’d collect them all in a book. He wondered if that would satisfy Ella and her belief that writing things down would be good for him.

Molly went to the stove to start the filling, and once again, Sherlock made the cake, this time in regular eight-inch cake pans. Since there wasn’t a rush, they had the time to bake and cool a full cake and serve it in slices in the bakery. Once the cakes were in the oven, Sherlock started John on chocolate chip biscuits, overseeing him following the new recipe while he and Molly worked on much more difficult éclairs and napoleons. At seven, most of the bakery shelves were filled and Molly headed off to her marketing, while Sherlock worked in the back and John tended the counter. It wasn’t very hard work, as the store was still mostly empty, but John did what he could to neaten and clean while he waited for a customer.

He didn’t have long to wait. Precisely ten minutes after opening a customer strode through the doors, in a power suit and with a Bluetooth earpiece in one ear. John perked up, and then waited, fighting to keep the irritation off his face as whoever the man was finished up a conversation over his mobile before finally paying attention to John waiting patiently for him. John really wished there had been another customer to serve so he could have left this man until last, but alas. John hoped Molly drummed them up some more business just so they could pick and choose and not have to supply their very best customer service to arseholes. It was probably a good thing Sherlock was in the back.

“Can I help you?” John asked politely as he could manage, once the arsehole was off the phone.

“I’m here to see Sherlock Holmes.” The way it was said could not have been more perfectly designed to make John want to strangle him. An amazing combination of being talked down to, irritation, and superiority.

“May I ask what this is regarding?” Every word he said was harder and harder to fit through gritted teeth.

“I am in a bakery. Why else would I be in a bakery but to order cake? I believe I called ahead.”

John could mention about 12 reasons for being in a bakery that didn’t involve ordering a cake, but kept his mouth shut on them. He was beginning to realize why Sherlock had seemed so unsettled by the mention of this Sebastian Wilkes’ name. He was a colossal prick. “I’ll just go see if he’s free.” Arguing that John could take an order just as easily as Sherlock would likely be useless on a man like this. Besides, knowing Sherlock, he would want to order the cake for Sebastian. As he ducked into the back he wondered who might win that particular battle.

“Sherlock,” he said, taking care not to call out until he’d seen Sherlock was doing nothing precarious. “That Sebastian Wilkes guy is here. I thought you might want to tell him what to order?”

Sherlock looked up from artfully placing cut fruit (which Molly had prepped earlier) onto tarts, and nodded. However he felt about it, he certainly didn’t seem eager for the meeting. Still, he hoped the order was either complicated or massive. He was already craving the organized chaos of the order for The Yard. It had been brilliant.

Sherlock passed through the door to the front room and John came just after. Wilkes looked up from his watch with a knowing smile.

“Sherlock!” he greeted before turning to John and speaking conspiratorially. “Best baker I know—kept us in pastry all year long. We were sad to see him go, but he had this irritating habit of insisting on what you could or couldn’t have.”

Sherlock cleared his throat. “I still do that. Please state who the cake is for and if possible provide a picture. Video would be ideal. I’ll prepare what I think best.”

Sebastian barreled on ahead as if what Sherlock had said was amusing at best and ignorable at worst. “I’ll need two to three dozen cupcakes for a retirement party. That’s the trendy thing now, cupcakes? Right? Around thirty people, so say three dozen. Chocolate’s good, right? Yeah, everybody likes chocolate. Chocolate cupcakes, make ‘em look fancy.”

John blinked. He hadn’t realized until just this moment that he’d never seen a cupcake before in the bakery.

Sherlock drew himself up to his full height. “I do not make _cupcakes_ ,” he said, pronouncing the word as distastefully as he might say ‘Twinkie’. “Cupcakes are for people who don’t enjoy dessert, they just think they should. The proportion of cake to frosting is completely wrong. Cake, with a few exceptions, should be enjoyed while seated and eaten with a fork. Cupcakes are an American bastardization of dessert.” He leaned forward over the glass case. “Show me a picture and I will tell you what the man will _actually_ enjoy,” he said, each word precise.

Sebastian looked at John as if to ask for help or assistance, but John was certainly not going to come to the aid of this prick, even if he could intervene on his behalf. John shrugged and tipped his head towards Sherlock.

Sebastian sighed, and pulled out his smartphone from his hip holster. “Any other bakery would be happy to just take my money,” he said, scrolling through the pictures. “The only reason you’re worth the trouble is because I know you’re good. Still though, place like this,” he waved his hand to indicate the décor, “hiding your light under a bushel a bit, don’t you think? And it’s not like there’s a line of customers out the door.” He handed over his phone. John caught a glance at a well-built, elderly man in a suit before Sherlock pulled it closer, enlarging parts of the picture and examining it in detail. “I’m probably going to be the only thing keeping this place afloat this week.”

John bristled a bit at the slight but Sherlock ignored it, studying the picture. After a long moment he closed out of the picture and handed the phone back. “Angel food cake, whipped cream, fresh fruit,” he pronounced. “It will serve thirty.”

“Angel food cake? Who buys angel foo—“

“His mother made him angel food cake as a child. He has a preference for clean, light, uncomplicated flavors, which I can tell, because he’s a sloppy eater. Look at his tie.”  He huffed a sigh. “Or you could get your chocolate cupcakes, but he’s allergic to chocolate. Not sure what that would do to your promotion plans.”

There was a tense moment of standoff between them, and then Sebastian shoved his phone back in it’s holster. “Fine. But I want a 20% discount because of your appalling customer service.”

“Fine,” Sherlock responded. “Ring him in please, John, and I’ll get started on the cake. John can deliver it to the office when it is finished.”

John was fairly confident that Molly wouldn’t approve. John hadn’t been brought into the loop on expenses and pricing, but he assumed things were priced tightly in the bakery and the discount would likely cut into their profits if not eat them entirely.

“Sherlock…” he started, hoping to remind Sherlock of what might be a major pricing issue.

Sherlock cut in smoothly as he stepped back into the kitchen, however. “Ring him in, John,” he repeated.

John could only shrug and shake his head, stepping over to the cash register. He hadn’t really been properly taught how to use it and between a custom cake and the 20% discount, it took him a while to figure out how to make the register spit out the correct answer. Sebastian, annoyed by the delay, hands over a platinum credit card for the payment. John wrestled a bit more setting up the chip and pin machine properly, but the receipt spit out, assuring him the payment had gone through eventually. Sebastian left the address and the delivery time on a scrap of paper at the counter before leaving. John was glad to see him go, quite frankly.

He watched Sebastian climb into a posh silver sports car illegally parked out front and then headed back to the kitchen to check on Sherlock, trusting that the door chimes would alert them if anyone came in. “So, you went to school with that bloke, and gave him free cake? Hard to believe.”

“If we can, perhaps, leave off on judging the actions and behaviors of my past self it would be appreciated,” Sherlock said dryly. “Now please step over here. It’s long past time you learned how to make a proper cake.”

John was wise enough not to say that he assumed the ingredients were all just dumped in together and mixed on high. Instead he watched Sherlock combine ingredients carefully in a prescribed order and at prescribed times.  

“The secret,” he said, carefully folding dry ingredients into wet with a silicon mixing spoon, “is to not crush all the air out of the batter. Fold gently until they’re distributed. It’s the air that does all the work here,” he explained, before pouring the batter into a angel food cake tube, gently smoothing it into place and piercing the larger air pockets with a spatula.

“No, but really,” John said, still in a bit of disbelief. “How did you ever manage to run in the same circles as Sebastian Wilkes? He seems like an absolute git.”

Sherlock huffed, focusing on the pan in front of him. “I have a brain that thinks only in recipes, John. I know what ingredients go together, and what flavors will appeal to which individuals. I can no more not cook than not breathe. Sebastian and his friends were in the right place at the right time to benefit from my… largesse. I needed someone to bake for and he was nearby.” He patted the side of the pan, settling the batter and took it to the oven. “More’s the pity they all preferred particularly boring and uninventive dishes. Some particularly bland sugar cookies and a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, if I recall correctly.”

“You still haven’t made me a dessert,” John commented mildly. “I suppose that means I secretly want something very boring. Vanilla pudding from Tesco, probably,” he joked.

“No,” Sherlock said very fast and very vehemently. “There hasn’t been time, but I will make you something. I’m contemplating flavors.”

“I’ve… Have I stumped you?” John asked, a smile growing on his face. “I can’t possibly be that complicated.” John considered himself rather average, all things considered. He enjoyed a cuppa and the newspaper and wore jumpers and jeans. What could possibly be complicated about that?

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “You trained as a surgeon, became a soldier, and now work in a bakery, but still keep an illegal firearm in your bedside table drawer. You’re a bit unusual.”

“Have you been snooping around in my room?” John asked, a little offended.

“You had traces of gun oil on your hand this morning,” Sherlock explained, “and you have before as well. A man without a hand gun generally doesn’t.”

“Oh,” John said, caught off guard. He rubbed at his hand absentmindedly, as if the oil might still be there despite his thorough hand washing. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“Also, yes, I did ‘snoop’ in your room,” Sherlock added, verbal quotations around the word snoop obvious, as if it weren’t a word or a concept he’d deign to apply to it. “You have quite a lot of jumpers. It seemed statistically significant, somehow.”

“Do the jumpers have anything to do with determining desserts?”

“…Possibly.”

John pursed his lips. “Well, you’ve had a look, so now just stay out of my room, all right?”

“All right,” Sherlock said.

John narrowed his eyes, not exactly believing Sherlock’s honesty in that moment. Still, John had had worse flatmates. It wasn’t like Sherlock was liable to have sex in his bed, or sell his stereo for drugs, or burn the kitchen down, all things that had happened with uni flatmates. At least he hoped Sherlock wasn’t liable to do those things. Sherlock had his… eccentric habits, but John certainly felt he could mostly deal with them, and at the moment he was too grateful to have a roof over his head to complain much. At least, so far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe I got the recipe from here: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/angel-food-cake/66bcb128-5ee6-4f1c-b428-6c1bb4cc45ca
> 
> If not, close enough.


	7. Strawberry-Mint Macarons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John delivers a cake and gets waylaid on the way back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to the usual suspects: Stitchy, Felicia, and the rest of the gang.

**Strawberry Mint Macarons**

Ingredients for cookies:

6 oz icing sugar

3.5 oz almond flour

3 oz egg whites (about three large eggs)

pinch of salt

1.5 oz granulated sugar

food coloring (if desired)

Ingredients for filling:

100 g/3.5 oz double cream

6 mint leaves

100 g/3.5 cream cheese

50 g/2 oz. powdered sugar

40 g/1.5 oz strawberry puree

15 ml/.5 oz strawberry liquor

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees/gas mark 4. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift powdered sugar and almond flour into medium bowl and set aside. In an electric mixer with whisk attachment whip egg whites and salt (and food coloring) on medium until foamy. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar continuing to whip until egg whites form stiff, glossy peaks. Gently fold almond mixture into egg whites with rubber spatula until completely incorporated.

Fit pastry bag with 3/8 inch #4 round tip; fill with batter. Pipe 1 inch disks onto baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Let stand at room temperature for about 15 minutes until dry. The surface will turn dull and a ‘skin’ will form. Put in oven and bake with oven door slightly ajar for 15 minutes. Let cookies cool entirely on baking sheet and gently peel off parchment and turn flat side up.

For filling, tear up mint leaves and place in pot with cream. Simmer over medium-low heat until boiling and then remove from heat. Allow mint to steep for 30 minutes and then strain them from cream. Cool cream in freezer for 15 minutes. Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth. Add strawberry puree and liquor. Add heavy cream and beat until stiff peaks form, but do not overbeat or cream will curdle.

Fill piping bag with filling, and pipe onto flat surface of macaron. Sandwich with another cookie of similar size and repeat until all cookies have been filled. 

* * *

 

It turned out, Sherlock did not have a delivery truck. He didn’t even have a car. Or even a bike. And John certainly didn’t have a vehicle. So when Sherlock sent John out into the city with a big pink bakery box in his hands containing a very fragile angel food cake, John wasn’t exactly sure what to do at first. Sebastian’s office tower wasn’t far, but there was too much that could happen to a fragile cake on the busy streets of London, so after a moment’s deliberation, John sprung for a cab.

The delivery was uneventful, and Sebastian was still mostly sneering when he got a look at the cake, but John loitered long enough to see it presented to the retiring boss, a rather taciturn looking man, who’s face lit up when he saw it. “How did you know? My mother used to make a cake just like this—we used to summer on a farm with plenty of eggs from the chickens and…”

John shook his head at the strange turn his life had taken, but smiled, and headed back the way he’d come. Now that he wasn’t carrying a fragile cake, he felt no need for the extravagance of the cab and decided to walk. It was still rather a delight to have his mobility back, and, although he did realize he was on the clock, he made sure to take the scenic way back, turning down a street with a number of nice shops and restaurants which gave him something to look at as he strode back to Baker Street. It was one of the awkward mid-meal hours so the restaurants were mostly empty aside from wait staff and kitchen staff prepping for the next rush.

None of them were restaurants he’d ever be able to afford, and he watched with some interest as the staff bustled about with an almost military precision, changing tablecloths, inspecting flatware and pushing tables about. At one, a maître d was hanging today’s prix fixe menu in the window when he looked up and met John’s eyes. There was a flash of recognition in the man’s face, although John would certainly swear he’d never seen the gentleman before, and the maître d immediately took his mobile out of his pocket, dialed a number, and began speaking into the phone.

It certainly seemed an odd time for a phone call, and John rather wondered if the man wasn’t due to be sacked soon, but he found it happened the whole way down the street. People in the restaurants would see him, and instantly make a call. John flexed his hand, completely unsettled and starting to regret his decision to walk, when a woman stepped out from the alcove in front of the fanciest restaurant on the block. John didn’t consider himself a foodie, hadn’t even cared to think about places to eat out, let alone eat there, but he’d heard of Battersea. The Queen herself would have had to wait four months for a table there, and here a beautiful woman was stepping into his path from this restaurant and making eye contact with him.

“John Watson?” she asked.

In hindsight John probably should have denied it, for safety’s sake, but he’d always found beautiful women a distraction. “Yes,” he replied, cautiously slowing.

“Please follow me,” she said, and started to lead the way through the gleaming front doors of the restaurant.

“Follow..?” John stayed on the sidewalk. “I have work… I need to get back.”

The woman turned to look at him, unflappable but firm. “Follow me,” she repeated.

He lifted his foot to take a step along the sidewalk, back to the bakery, but for some reason he stepped towards the restaurant and kept going—the thing in him that craved adrenaline, whether on the battlefield or the kitchen, was clawing at him to follow this strange woman.

She walked ahead of him through a near empty restaurant, not turning back once, seemingly unconcerned that he would stray now that he’d started down the path, and he did not prove her wrong. At the back of the restaurant, near the kitchen, was an isolated table. Maybe it was one of those chef’s tables that John had heard about on the fancier cooking shows. Sitting at the table was one man, having a very expensive (John could tell because the portions were so small but so artfully arranged) meal, and savoring every bite. As John Watson approached, he delicately put down his knife and fork and nodded to the woman, who smartly turned and walked away. John was left standing in front of the table alone, even the staff suddenly seeming scarce, and John could have sworn he’d seen this scene in a gangster movie before. Godfather or Goodfellas, something like that.

“What is this?” he asked, glancing around and caught between confusion and suspicion.

“Captain John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Please have a seat.” The man waved his hand towards the chair at John’s end of the table.

John glanced down at the chair, but decided sitting too close to this man seemed somehow dangerous. He wanted to stay on his feet and stay mobile. “No thank you, I’ll stand.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “You only recently stopped limping,” he commented.

“Yes, but I did stop.” He almost wished he had his cane now, though, as a weapon.

“Yes. A near-miraculous recovery. Who knew baked goods could do such wonders for your health?” Everything the man said was as dry as the Sahara, and, while cloaked in a thin veneer of manners, was about as hospitable as the Sahara as well. “And who knew Sherlock Holmes would take on an apprentice with so very little training.”

He supposed it was possible that rumors had gotten out in the ‘food world’ that he’d been hired. It wasn’t exactly a state secret. Still, the idea that he was being watched and measured put his hackles up. “And who are you?”

“A friend.” The conversation must be boring him, John thought, watching him pick up his utensils again and cut a neat bite-sized portion of what looked like a pork medallion.

“A friend?” John’s skepticism was so thick, the man had probably cut a portion of it off with his knife when he’d cut the pork.

The man chewed thoughtfully on his portion. “Sherlock Holmes would probably call me his enemy, but he was always dramatic. I’m only concerned for him.”

“Concerned,” John repeated, doubtful.

The man raised an eyebrow. “Quite the conversationalist, aren’t you, John?” John scowled, and the man raised his hand to forestall his anger. “I’ve brought you here because I have a proposal for you. I know you’ve recently experienced money problems, and, as the permanence of Sherlock’s bakery is not a guarantee, you still are lacking monetary stability. In exchange for information, I will supply no small amount of money to your account. Enough so that you never fear insolvency again.”

“What kind of information? Not his recipes?” John could think of nothing else that someone might want to know about Sherlock, and John would never betray Sherlock or his business so dishonorably.

The man shook his head immediately to dissuade his fears. “Of course not. No. Nothing you would feel uncomfortable with. Just trifles about his day to day life.”

Somehow it was more disconcerting that he wanted such seemingly trivial information. John could think of no possible use for such things, especially for that amount of money. John fought his natural instinct to step away, squaring his shoulders and planting his feet into the floor. “I don’t think so.”

The man didn’t seem impressed by John’s physical posturing. “The bravery of the soldier,” he scoffed, shaking his head like it was the most foolish thing he’d ever seen. “You’re very loyal, very fast.

 “It’s not loyalty. I’m just not a spy.” There was venom in the word. Nothing was worse than a turncoat. “I think I’ll be leaving now.”

The man nodded his head, allowing it, if surprised and a bit displeased. “This won’t be the last time we meet, John Watson,” he said, as John turned to march out past the beautiful woman, now disinterestedly texting on her phone.

The rest of the way back to Baker Street was much less of a stroll than the first half of the walk had been. When he got back, Molly was back at the counter and greeted him with a smile, which fell a little when she saw the look on his face. He moved straight past her and back into the kitchen. Sherlock was thoughtfully tasting a sample of batter with a plastic spoon and looked up with a mild smile on his face when John stepped in. “Ah, John, you’re back,” he paused then, and frowned. “Where are the eggs?”

That non sequitur was enough to derail John entirely. “Eggs?”       

“Yes. I asked you to pick up free range eggs from the market down the street.”

John wracked his brain but couldn’t come up with a memory of any such instructions before he left with the cake. “When?” he asked, looking for clarification.

Sherlock shrugged. “15 minutes or so ago.”

John blinked. “I wasn’t here, Sherlock. I’ve been off delivering the cake. I’ve been gone for almost an hour.”

“Ah. At any rate, we’ll need eggs,” Sherlock said smoothly.

“Do you talk to me when I’m not here?” John asked. Despite the stress of the day a smile quirked the corner of his mouth up.

Sherlock paused for a moment and then turned back to his mixing bowl. “Apparently so,” he said at some length, sounding aggrieved.

John shook his head. “Well, while I wasn’t here, I met a friend of yours.”

Sherlock spun to look at him in shock. “A friend?”

“He said you’d call him an enemy,” John repeated dutifully.

“Ah.” Sherlock nodded, as if that pronouncement made much more sense. “What did he want?”

John paused, trying to figure out how one broached an offer of corporate espionage to a new employer. “He wanted me to spy on you. For money. Not recipes, apparently, just stuff about your day-to-day—“

“Did you take him up on it?” Sherlock asked, cutting him off.

“No!” John rushed to assure. “Of course not!” He was much too in need of a job to betray it already, and he wasn’t the type of person to do that anyway. Besides that, he found himself, despite his denial, feeling unaccountably loyal to Sherlock. For all Sherlock’s brashness and personality quirks, he found himself liking him.

Sherlock looked, of all things, disappointed. “Pity. We could have split the money.” It wasn’t exactly what John was expecting. He was halfway to sputtering a response when Sherlock waved him over. “Never mind, it’s too late now. Taste this.” He’d dipped a fresh plastic spoon in what John had assumed was a batter, but once Sherlock had jammed it into his mouth, he realized it was a berry flavored filling—thick, like a spread or icing. Only it wasn’t just berries.

“Strawberries and… mint?” He asked, taking the spoon out of his mouth.

Sherlock nodded. “Yes. Very good.”

“It’s delicious. What’s it for?”

“I’ve a customer coming in later. A referral. From the picture and e-mail she sent I was able to come up with something for her.” Sherlock smiled, confident. “Why don’t you take a look, and see if you can figure out what I’ve made?” He went to retrieve his cell phone and pulled up the requisite e-mail before washing his hands again and looking on, amused.

John blinked at the image that came up. “Well, that’s an awful lot of pink,” he started with. The picture was a professional shot, like one might put up on a ‘About us’ page on a website. The woman was middle-aged, attractive, and well put together in a nicely tailored suit, only the whole thing was pink. The pink of the suit matched perfectly the pink of her heels. “So, pink dessert to match?”

Sherlock nodded. “Yes, that bit’s easy. What else?”

John looked at the picture and shrugged. “I’m not you. I don’t have your superpower, or whatever, to see what kind of sugar everyone likes.” He handed the phone back, but Sherlock refused it.

“I don’t have a superpower. Anyone could do what I do if only they would take the time and effort.” He pushed the phone back to John. “Look. Really look. Don’t think about dessert at first. Just think about her. What can you learn about her from her appearance.”

John took the phone back, and looked at the picture again. “She looks professional. Like a lawyer or a businesswoman, only they’d never be able to get away with wearing so much pink. Well, maybe if she worked in cosmetics? But she doesn’t seem quite cutting edge enough for fashion… maybe…” He looked up at Sherlock to get a read on how he was doing, but Sherlock’s face was a careful mask. He clearly wanted John to muddle through on his own. He looked back down at the picture, and stuck out his tongue thoughtfully. “Maybe she works in real estate. They can be a little eccentric, right? And real estate agents are always baking biscuits when they show a home to make it smell good inside… but she’s really quite fit for her age so she must be always denying herself any. And you’ve made a frosting, so it must be a sugar biscuit. With pink frosting.”

“That is brilliant, John!” Sherlock said, beaming, and finally reaching out to take the phone back from him.

“It is? Am I right? She’s a realtor?” John puffed up a bit with pride. Maybe this whole thing was easy if you gave it your best shot. Maybe he could do this after all.

“Oh no,” Sherlock laughed. “You were completely wrong about almost everything, barring that she’s a woman dressed in pink, and yet still came to a relatively correct conclusion. It was quite amazing to witness.”

“Oh.” John deflated a bit. “So she’s not in realty?”

“Not remotely.” He tapped at the image on the phone. “That shade of pink is generally found in the media. Also, no realtor would ever be able to manage her job wearing such high heels. They’re completely inappropriate for any sort of walking and might actually damage certain floors. Her jewelry and the cut of her suit tells me she cares very much about keeping up appearances, but the lack of polish and care on the outside of her wedding band tells me she’s in an unhappy marriage. Her fondest thoughts are all behind her then—better times are in the past, not the future. Certain linguistic choices in the e-mail leads me to believe that she spent significant portions of her childhood in France, where she would be exposed, of course, to French food as well as language. Summers away from school on holiday with the happy parents she is disappointed her marriage does not emulate would mean she has a taste for the foods of summer. In this case, strawberries and mint on a French biscuit—a macaron.”

“How is that ‘relatively correct’?” John asked, incredulous.

“Well, you did get as far as pink biscuit,” Sherlock said. “I’m sure many would have said cake.” The timer went off on the ovens and Sherlock went to retrieve the trays of tiny, domed, pink biscuits that would sandwich the strawberry mint filling. “Be so kind as to fill a pastry bag, would you?” he asked, carefully setting the trays on the table to cool.

John did as he asked, already feeling an old hand at pastry bags now, carefully folding over the edge before spooning in the filling, and then, when full, twisting the top closed. He held the bag out to Sherlock, who was carefully (so as not to damage the fragile biscuits) plucking the macarons from the baking sheet and flipping them curved side down. They were mostly air, so cooled very quickly compared to other baked goods. John noted with some admiration that every biscuit was the exact same size. “Did you do that all free-hand?” he asked.

Sherlock shrugged, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. “Of course. It only takes a bit of practice,” he said, taking the pastry bag in hand and beginning to squeeze perfect dollops of filling onto every other macaron. “Be so good as to put the lids on?” he asked, moving mechanically down the line.

John nodded, and got to work, carefully pressing the biscuit halves together until the filling just came flush with the edges, and then setting the macaron back on the tray. It took no time at all and much less filling than John had suspected it would take, and they finished just as a bell rang at the front of the house signifying that a customer had entered.

“A firm push of the door, no hesitation,” Sherlock noted of the bell’s sound. “I believe that is our pink lady. Anyone concerning themselves with what to order would open the door more slowly as they looked at the case.” Sherlock and John packaged the biscuits up in the standard pink cake box and then handed them to John to take to the front.

“You’re not going to come see your handiwork?” John asked, a bit incredulous.

“I’ve already seen her picture. I know how they’ll go over,” Sherlock said confidently, waving him away as he cleared the decks so he could begin work on another project.

Feeling suitably dismissed, John pushed through the swinging door to the front of house. Molly was engaged in polite conversation with, sure enough, the woman dressed all in pink. John handed the box to Molly to ring up, but then lingered, hoping to see her take a bite before she left the shop.

For a moment, he thought she might just make her purchase and leave, saving all the biscuits for later, but with a grin like she couldn’t help herself, she opened the lid of the box, pulled out one of the macarons and popped it into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully, and then a second later burst into tears.

John’s eyes went wide as he stepped backwards, heading for the kitchen again. “Sherlock!” he said, alarmed, as he passed through the door, keeping his voice low enough that he hoped he wouldn’t be overheard. He nearly crashed into Sherlock who was lingering much closer to the door than strictly necessary, like he’d been lurking to overhear her reaction, despite his protests to the contrary.

Sherlock looked up at him, startled at first, but covering it well, going back to whisking something in a large metal bowl as if he hadn’t been surprised by John’s sudden reentrance at all. “Yes?” he said, completely blasé. Suspiciously so.

“She’s crying!” John said, in a hissing whisper.

Sherlock waved him off with a whisk dripping with cream. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He was utterly indifferent to the woman’s obvious distress.

John sputtered and Sherlock sighed deeply. He carefully set down his bowl and whisk and shepherded John back to the swinging door. “Look again, John. Not all crying is bad.”

John allowed himself to be guided back to the door and he pressed it open a crack to survey the scene again. The pink lady was gently clutching her pink bakery box to her chest like it was a precious childhood toy. Molly had a sympathetic arm around her, kindness on her face, but no shock, as if this sort of thing happened all the time to her. She patted the pink lady’s back gently, in a ‘there, there’ fashion. “I had a daughter named Rachel,” the pink lady was saying, “and-- God, I’ve never told this to anyone, why am I telling this to you?—she was stillborn and my marriage was never the same.”

“It’s good to talk about these things,” Molly murmured sympathetically.

John backed up again, leaving the women unobserved once more. He remembered what Stamford had told him on that first day. “This happens often?”

“This happens often,” Sherlock confirmed. “I hired Molly because she was the only pastry sous chef I could find who also had training in counseling psychology. When I first opened the bakery it quickly became apparent I was not capable of dealing with the emotional fallout of my work. Which is why Molly handles the front of house, and I, happily, remain back here once the eating starts.” He picked up his bowl and resumed whisking. “I assume the bedside manner you may have developed as a surgeon in the military might serve in Molly’s stead should she become ill—which is likely as she does spend a lot of time _hugging_ people.” ‘Hugging people’ was said with the same level of distaste that another person might have said ‘licking people’. “However, bedside manner with soldiers might involve a bit of brusqueness that the general public would not appreciate. That being said, it’s clear you have a strong sense of both morality and empathy which should serve me just fine.”

“So sure about that, are you?” John asked.

“Very sure. I’m very rarely wrong. You’ve seen.” Sherlock said, drawing himself upright even more.

“So how’s my dessert coming?” John smirked.

Sherlock scowled. “We have all been busy. I will make it when we have a moment and it will be _brilliant_ ,” he sniffed, and wheeled away to the far side of the kitchen to finish his whisking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recipe for filling from: http://www.whateversleft.org/2013/04/05/strawberry-mint-macarons/  
> Macaron cookie recipe adapted from: http://www.marthastewart.com/319525/parisian-macaroons


	8. Chocolate Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock ruins John's breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, everybody for sticking with this! As a thank you, I'm posting the last chapter a day ahead of schedule. I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> And Stitchy's reminded me that I'm pretty much required to write a one shot called the Six Napoleons, so I suppose I'll work on that next. XD
> 
> ...After I fix all the conversions on the recipes here, of course.

**Chocolate Cake**

Ingredients:

9 oz all-purpose flour

1 ¼ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp baking powder

8 oz. hot water

2.5 oz unsweetened baking cocoa

6 oz shortening

10 oz. sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Heat oven to gas mark 4/180 C. Grease two eight-inch cake pans. In small bowl mix hot water and cocoa until dissolved. Set aside. In medium bowl sift flour, soda, salt, and powder. In large bowl of electric mixer beat shortening for 30 seconds. Gradually add sugar, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Beat an additional 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. On low speed, alternate adding flour and cocoa, beating until just blended. Divide batter into cake pans. Bake for 33-36 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for at least 5 minutes in pans and then turn onto serving plate or rack to decorate as desired.

* * *

There had been, according to Sherlock, a ‘durian _incident_ ’ in the night. John had managed to sleep through Sherlock’s late-night baking, but when he came down in the morning for his tea and toast, he arrived to find a very unpleasant smell in the kitchen and, also according to Sherlock, most of the previous content of the fridge in the bins outside… Including his expensive jam.

“Sherlock! I hadn’t even used half of it!” John exclaimed, knowing he was upset well out of proportion to the loss, but unreasonably upset by it anyway. “And it was sealed in a jar! How could you have possibly have contaminated it inside a glass jar?”

“You are welcome to fish it out of the trash and see,” Sherlock said, infuriatingly calm in the face of John’s voice getting higher and higher with incredulousness. “In the meantime, there is still toast and tea.” He set out the loaf of bread near the toaster and the box of tea near the kettle, which was possibly the most helpful Sherlock had ever been towards the preparation of breakfast. John noticed, however, that the tea may have taken a direct hit of durian as well. There were only about half the teabags he remembered from yesterday. “You can have some of my honey on your toast if you like.”

Ordinarily, John might have been flattered by the offer. ‘Sherlock’s’ honey was from an organic, small-batch boutique apiary in Sussex. It came in a fancy glass jar, with the sort of clean, crisp label in modern typeface that let you know that people paid far more money for it than most would think was sane. John had Googled the price of a jar once and promptly swallowed his tongue. It was very, very good honey, and while Sherlock had shown no real overzealous protection of it, John’s morals were clear on the matter. You did not eat, not even a sneaky taste, your flatmate’s luxury foodstuffs. Still, the loss of his own jam was fresh, and he snarled, “I don’t want honey, I want jam!” and scowled at the toast as if it were no longer even reasonable to have breakfast at all without the possibility of jam.

Sherlock sighed, and looked up abortively as if he were about to roll his eyes and either checked himself or felt the action not worth the effort about half-way through. “I’ll be downstairs working,” he said after a moment, moving to the door. “Do stop by when you’ve finished your strop.”

“It’s not a--!” But Sherlock was already gone, footsteps moving down the stairway.

John stomped loudly around the kitchen as he drank a cup of tea—bland without the jam as a counterpoint—and choked down a piece of toast, only because he’d faint without _anything_ before their usual lunch break, secretly hoping that Sherlock could hear him downstairs. After the last bite of toast had been swallowed, however, and it became quite clear that Sherlock would not return upstairs to apologize, John’s temper finally cooled—it was just _jam_ after all—and he went to work, head held high because he had the moral high ground, despite the _strop_ , goddammit.

Downstairs was actually rather full of people when he arrived. Molly, he noticed, somewhat shamefacedly, was taking the morning delivery instead of him, loading the groceries into the fridge and pantry as the delivery driver brought the boxes in. Sherlock, meanwhile was having a bit of a strop of his own at… he blinked. It was the man from the restaurant! The man who had offered a bribe to spy on Sherlock! His anger at Sherlock was entirely forgotten in the face of a threat and he rushed over to Sherlock’s side to stand flank to flank with him in solidarity.

The man greeted him with a cold smile. “Ah. John Watson. Perhaps _you_ would be so kind as to talk to your employer about taking my order.”

“Sherlock!” John hissed, drawing close. “This is the man who—“

Sherlock talked over him. “I don’t particularly feel like it,” Sherlock said airily to the man in the suit. “You can wait until we’re open and then pick something from the case.”

“Sherlock, we are not children anymore.” John frowned at that. It wasn’t something you expected a stranger to say. “We should not rely on Mummy to step in and sort our differences.”

That caused John to splutter. “Wait—Mummy?”

Sherlock sighed, in great pains to admit what he was about to reveal. “This is Mycroft. My brother. He eats food.”

_Mycroft—like the chocolate cake!_ John thought while Mycroft drew himself up to his full height.

“I _review_ food, dear brother. I have the most discerning palate in Europe, Sherlock—“

“Debatable,” Sherlock murmured under his breath.

Mycroft turned to John instead. “It’s been certified by three different scientific and culinary agencies,” he assured.

Sherlock threw his hands in the air. “And he does nothing with it but eat food other people make!”

“My palate is meant for appreciation and critique, not labour.”

“Laziness,” Sherlock sniffed.

John broke in to clarify a point. “So when we made the chocolate cake for Lestrade’s restaurant… Was Mycroft the critic?”

Sherlock said nothing, merely smirked. It was enough of an answer for John.

“So when Lestrade placed the order, did you know or just guess?” John asked, incredulous.

“I never guess!” Sherlock said, still incredibly smug. “I deduced it. Mycroft is one of the few food critics worth getting nervous about. I know the days he goes out to eat, I know the restaurants he has yet to review… the rest was simplicity itself.”

Mycroft tapped his umbrella impatiently on the floor. “If we could get back to the point of my visit. I am having a few guests over and would like to offer them the cake I was served at _The Yard_. I need it to serve twelve to fifteen. I trust that won’t be a problem.”

“No. It won’t be.” Molly finally spoke up clearly. Sherlock spun to give her a betrayed look, and grumbled, but chose not to outright deny her. “We’ll have your cake ready for this evening, Mr. Holmes,” she said primly. “Come with me to the front and we’ll do the paperwork.” She gave him a professional smile and escorted him towards the door. She flashed Sherlock a look over her shoulder that quite clearly conveyed he was in trouble for picking a fight with a customer no matter who it was. Sherlock sulked until they both left the room and he was alone with John.

“So did Lestrade know you and Mycroft are brothers?” John asked.

Sherlock shrugged and headed over to the counter, presumably to start work on the chocolate cake.

John shook his head, amused, and wondering why he wasn’t more horrified with Sherlock’s behavior as he went to the refrigerator to set out the ingredients for Mycroft’s cake. While he wasn’t yet trusted to make the cake part yet, or the filling, he at least knew what was in them, and felt pretty confident he had the frosting down. “The least you could do is tell him, you know. He might think you’ve scammed him!”

“The smallest bit of research would reveal the truth. I’m not about to go around apologizing for everyone’s ignorance. Besides, no matter how you look at it, I did do him a favor. Anderson never would have gotten a positive review from Mycroft, no matter what he was making.”

“You are amazing,” John said, disbelief obvious in his tone, setting the first batch of ingredients out in careful groups on the work top.

“Thank you.” Sherlock clearly took it as a compliment. John looked up at him with a grin, only to find him holding a pink bakery box. There was an awkward hesitation as if Sherlock had had a sudden moment of doubt, but it was surely too late to hide such a conspicuous box again and Sherlock thrust it out towards John in an action that looked more like a muscle spasm than a simple extension of the arms. “This is for you,” he said quickly, setting it on the table top in front of John and then taking a step back.

John thought it looked suspiciously as if he were stepping clear of a blast zone and he lifted the lid of the box carefully, even as he asked, “For me?” Inside the box were four perfectly formed cupcakes, beige in color. John frowned down at them. “You don’t make cupcakes.”

Sherlock huffed a sigh. “Yes, well, you’re clearly happiest while on the move, doing things, so you needed a portable dessert that could be eaten one handed. Biscuits almost always require a cup of tea occupying the free hand, so they would be out. Besides, you clearly are a cake personality. You left me little choice.”

“Wait. This is my dessert? My official dessert?” John carefully reached into the box and pulled a cupcake out. He didn’t know what it said about him that the cupcake was so very beige, but it still looked rather delicious.

“Yes, of course. I told you I would figure you out.” Sherlock was brushing perilously close to indignant hurt.

John sniffed at the cake. “It’s not durian flavored, is it?” Sherlock could only have made these last night, after all.

“Oh for—John, just eat the cake!” Sherlock threw his hands in the air.

John shrugged, peeled down the paper on one side of the cake, and took a bite.

It was heavenly.

The crumb was fine and moist, the frosting buttery. Though his palate was underdeveloped (so said Sherlock) he could clearly taste his favorite tea and his expensive raspberry jam, not destroyed by the durian after all. Before he thought to comment on Sherlock’s obvious durian cover story, Sherlock’s true genius hit him: When he closed his eyes and chewed, he was having a comfortable breakfast with Sherlock sitting next to him, playfully bantering before another thrilling day of working elbow to elbow with him in the kitchen turning out rush orders and working on three jobs at once. He opened his eyes and beamed at Sherlock. ‘I was so alone,’ John thought to himself, ‘and I owe him so much.’

Sherlock squirmed under John’s gaze. He glanced towards the front, but Molly did not seem forthcoming to act as a buffer for John’s emotional response to his baking, so he cleared his throat and turned to the mixer. “That’s enough of that, I think,” he blustered. “I made you cupcakes so you could work while you ate. The frosting is not going to make itself.”

John chuckled, unperturbed. “So the tea and jam were not victims of a durian accident, I gather.”

“No,” Sherlock told his mixer, cracking an egg into the bowl.

“You still owe me tea and jam.”

Sherlock huffed. “Next time you go to the store take a tenner from my wallet,” he said, not caring a whit.

“They are very good,” John finally acknowledged.

“Well, of course they’re good. I made them!”

“It is kind of cheating if you get to watch me eat breakfast every day, though. Not exactly using much deduction there.”

Sherlock made an indignant gasping sound and spun on him. “Cheating!? Cheating??” His eyes were large and disbelieving, betrayed. “The deduction is figuring out that you like breakfast the best and why you like breakfast and what it reminds you of! If I was just copying your meals I could have made you pork chow mein cupcakes, but you wouldn’t have had an emotional response from them!”

“So why breakfast then?” John prompted.

“Because it’s when you wake up and remind yourself that your life is better now. That you have money enough to survive in the city that you love. That you have a job that makes you want to go to work. That you have me!” His eyes got large at his realization of what he’d said, and embarrassed at the admission, he flushed and turned back to his mixer.

John smiled. “I do have you.” He bumped his shoulder companionably into Sherlock’s. “I don’t think I could survive without you, you stupid git.” He chuckled again. “Thanks for the cupcakes, Sherlock. They’re perfect.”

Sherlock leaned his shoulder against John’s for a moment longer before grumbling, “Frosting does not make itself, John.”

John laughed outright, finished his last bite of his cupcake, and went to go get the butter to start his day of work.

* * *

**‘John’s Cupcakes’**

Cake Ingredients:

10 oz all-purpose flour

2 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

8 oz butter, softened

8.5 oz sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

5.5 fl oz milk

3-4 English Breakfast tea bags

Raspberry Jam

Instructions: Pour milk in saucepan. Heat to simmering and remove from heat. Steep teabags for at least 10 minutes, before removing teabags, and refrigerate until at least down to room temperature. Heat oven to gas mark 4/180 degrees C. Place paper baking cups in cupcake pan. In medium bowl sift flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. In large bowl of electric mixer beat butter on medium for 30 seconds. Gradually add sugar, scraping bowl occasionally, and beat 2 minutes longer after sugar has been added. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Add milk to milk-tea to bring level back to 5.5 fl oz. On low speed alternate adding flour and milk tea, about half at a time, beating until just blended. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes. Move cupcakes to cooling pans. With sharp small knife, cut dime sized circle in the top of each cupcake, no deeper than halfway through the cupcake. With small spoon, carefully dig out cutout from cake. Discard. Carefully fill each hole with raspberry jam.

Frosting:

1.7 lbs. icing sugar

5.5 oz butter, softened

2-4 tablespoons strong tea (or extra milk tea)

Directions:

In large bowl beat butter until smooth. Slowly add powdered sugar on low speed. Gradually add tea until frosting is smooth and spreadable. Fill pastry bag fitted with M1 Star tip, and swirl frosting over the top of each cake, covering the jam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chocolate cake adapted from: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/chocolate-cupcakes/f15e69fc-7b15-4845-9fa6-52f3afd6fa08
> 
> Tea cupcake modified from yellow cake recipe: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/yellow-cupcakes/be00e57d-b830-4b60-8531-590ea8baeedf


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